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SECESSION: 




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PHILADELPHIA: 

KING & BAIBD, No. 607 SANSOM STREET, 
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SECESSION: 



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PHILADELPHIA: 

KING & BAIRD, PRINTERS, 607 SANSOM STREET. 

1861. 






X 



SECESSION: 

A. FOLLY AND A. CEIME, 



The present moment is full of omen and exciting 
interest. None so critical has occurred in the event- 
ful history of the country. It invites the earnest 
reflection of every citizen. Experience furnishes no 
guide for action, and the soundest judgment, left to 
its own unassisted strength, can scarcely be relied 
on. Impulses of an enlarged patriotism must be 
earnestly invoked, and they may with the best assur- 
ance be trusted for a rule ' of conduct. With a view 
to present movements and future consequences, let 
these supply the want of experience, and aid the 
honest efforts of judgment. No theme can be so 
important for discussion, or so well adapted to meet 
the current of universal thought and duty, as that 
which treats of the divided, disturbed and distracted 
condition of the country. If a ray of light can be 
shed upon the surrounding darkness ; if sentiment in 
itself perfectly pure, yet unfixed in precise conclu- 
sions, can be led to united and definite purposes ; if 



4 SECESSION : A FOLLY AND A CRIME. 

tendencies towards seemingly minor differences of 
opinion on collateral points involved in the general 
issue, can be restrained, and all diversity can be cen- 
tered in one universal test of concurring wisdom, in 
which heart and mind, and hand, shall join their 
several powers for the common good, the triumph of 
principle, and the success of necessary conflict will be 
secured together. 

One great object absorbs the public mind. It is 
the novel state of the Nation. All are alive to it, 
and the degree of individual excitement depends 
only on the greater or less extent of personal liability 
to agitation. It has been familiarly said that no one 
could think out of Shakspeare. It would puzzle 
anybody to think of anything but rebellion. The 
thoughts with unvarying devotion, are led merely to 
the variety which prompts at once, or in rapid suc- 
cession, to lament or to condemn on the one side, 
and to encourage, to justify, and to serve on the 
other. These are the necessary tendencies and espe- 
cial duties of the hour. 

There has rarely existed a great subject of interest, 
in the minor details and incidents, of which there 
were not differences of opinion, and each side sus- 
tained by positive conviction of right. I cannot 
suppose that there are not many of the rankest 
secessionists who have brought themselves to believe 
that their cause deserves to be sustained. A phrenzy 
of delirium is not necessary to make the worse 



secession: a folly and a crime. 5 

appear the better reason. Infatuation produces a 
like result in a subject not otherwise unsound. In- 
terest is often an ingredient of conviction, prejudice 
forestals reflection, companionship influences opinion, 
pride and passion are more powerful persuasives 
than reason and good sense. Looking at moral 
objects with the mind's eye, is like looking at natural 
objects with bodily vision. The sight of each is 
commonly true, yet in either it may be distorted, by 
false medium, prejudice, or rage. Circumstances not 
always to be explained, give color, shape, dimensions, 
merit and defects of their own, either without any 
actual existence, or so exaggerated as to assume 
appearances perhaps the opposite of truth. Yet the 
truth remains in the centre, and cannot be changed. 
Religious antagonism at certain periods, has been the 
most bitter of all, for conscience, even more than 
judgment, has been sometimes a false guide, and 
martyrdom has been accepted, in preference to con- 
cession, even of abstract and perhaps immaterial 
opinion. In the barbarous reign of Henry VIII. of 
England, whose tyranny was not surpassed by that of 
Nero or Caligula, massacres for mere opinion were 
numerous. No less than nineteen Anabaptists for 
example, born in Holland, were examined at one 
time at St. Paul's Church, London, and condemned 
to be burned alive, for believing, among other tilings, 
that children born of infidels might be saved. 

Religious fury of a former time and in another 



6 secession: a folly and a crime. 

sphere, has given way to political violence, not less 
ferocious, among ourselves. We have seen, that in 
certain portions of our own country, opinions, or the 
bare suspicions of them, at variance with those of the 
special latitude, have subjected the holders of them 
to cruelties of every sort, and even to ignominious 
and painful death. Martyrdom, it seems, must have 
its victims, even without the excuse of conscience or 
a holy cause. 

These and other fearful atrocities had long been in 
practice sanctioned and approved by eminent leaders. 
They were demonstrations of hatred towards the 
Northern portion of the country, still held in a spirit 
of hollow alliance, which had succeeded to what had 
become at last a nominal Union. They broke forth 
at length into active organized and authoritative 
hostility. Secession was proclaimed as the great end 
and aim. It neither felt nor fancied complaint or 
grievance from the general government, nor did it 
suggest a desire for relief from definite, imaginary 
wrongs. It was a spontaneous combustion. It ex- 
ploded at its own selected time, m its own unpre- 
cedented manner, under its own self-created circum- 
stances, and with its own mad exploits offensively 
and angrily resorted to. Had it been limited to 
mere secession it might have been patiently endured, 
however unjustifiable by constitutional law or natural 
reason. No threat of coercion was ever made or 
uttered against it. Any such design was instantly 



SECESSION : A FOLLY AND A CRIME. 7 

disavowed by the still existing head of the govern- 
ment. All that has ever been pretended to as a 
rebel right might have been indulged with impunity 
from all, and from many who would not weep for the 
separation, with welcome. A compliment so much 
desired and expected, was never paid in thought ©r 
action. Had rebellion confined itself to mere seces- 
sion, it could have been accomplished without a 
struggle or an obstacle, the perpetrators would have 
been simply delivered over to be buffeted of Satan in 
the fulness of their own sins. They were too veno- 
mous to be pitied, and too violent and mischievous 
to be despised. 

Yet the right of dissolving the Union is totally 
denied to individual States. The continuance of it 
was pledged as a cardinal ingredient from the begin- 
ning to be perpetual. Bad taste and bad principle 
were evident in the secession proceedings, as well as 
bad feeling. They are unequivocally condemned 
A regret too, that they should, under any circum- 
stances, have been resorted to, from whatever pretext, 
is for the most part felt. The actors in them were 
probably quite surprised that such should be the 
case. They expected measures of coercion, and they 
met at first sorrow rather than anger. They seemed 
to desire war, for which they had long been pre- 
paring. Arms and men, they had been singing like 
the Roman poet during several years. Great must 
have been the disappointment that rebellion did not 



8 secession: a folly and a crime. 

at once call them into active use. Secession, how- 
ever, in itself, was not then, and is not now with us, 
the principal point. The act itself was simply 
unopposed. It was endured with a patience that 
lulled the perpetrators of it into fatal error. It gave 
encouragement to acts worse than itself. They who 
chose to do the deed, and have executed it as they 
believe effectually, will one day lament their folly, if 
not their guilt. If they have any of the usual feel- 
ings of a people which they now claim to be con- 
sidered, they will feel keenly the loss of what they 
have thrown away. A common fame derived from 
the glorious deeds of a common and illustrious 
ancestry, in what was supposed to be a common 
cause, has heretofore been enjoyed by them as a rich 
inheritance. This they have forfeited. They have 
now nothing in history, and little in prospect, to claim 
as their own. All is obscure in the past, as well as 
dark and dreary in the future. A country vast in 
geographical extent, limited only by oceans and 
inland seas, and combining everything to minister to 
the enjoyment of its inhabitants, was theirs. They 
shared all the advantages of the States which were 
separated in position, but closely connected by mu- 
tual interests and every description of domestic tie. 
They shared, and more than shared, in the benefits 
of the Union. A large excess of representation for 
actual citizenship, was secured to them by the con- 
stitution in the National council. The manufactures 



secession: a folly axd a crime. 9 

of the North were received at little cost, without 
withdrawing local labor from its especial objects. 
Visits of health and recreation were made at all 
seasons, and particularly when a Southern climate 
rendered absence indispensable to many ; and not 
only did watering places become occupied by them 
as friends, but hospitable doors were everywhere 
thrown open to them. 

Besides the many personal advantages liberally 
enjoyed at all times, the South occasionally reaped 
harvests of political triumph. In various agitated 
questions, where differences of interest were found or 
fancied, and differences of sentiment, which are no less 
captivating, were certainly felt, the North gracefully 
yielded their wishes, if not their rights. It was one 
of the happy effects of the Union, that a majority in 
numbers, in wealth, in cultivation, in seminaries of 
learning, to say nothing of the possession of a better 
climate, and the production of almost everything for 
the support and comfort of human life and the pre- 
servation of social intercourse, should concede so 
much and so often to the wishes of a somewhat 
capricious and always fastidious brotherhood. It 
was all in vain. Gratitude is always a rare virtue. 
Benefits are often felt like coals of fire upon the head 
of pride. A long-cherished indulgence of resentment 
towards the whole Northern States and people, for 
supposed injuries offered by a few, and a desire 
perhaps to quarrel with over pacific neighbors, reluc- 



10 SECESSION : A FOLLY AND A OBIME. 

tant to the onset, at length found vent. The feeling, 
if not innate, as it should rather seem to have been, 
had at least been fostered so long that it was adopted 
as if natural, broke forth into open and avowed rebel- 
lion, and fierce and uncompromising war. Here 
too, the South has gained the beginning of a gloomy 
end. Upon her the responsibility rests. Like her 
overtures in peaceful times, for good or evil, the gage 
of battle has been accepted. There too, the North, 
with a reluctant but not unbecoming assent, and now 
general cordial concurrence, has at last acquiesced; 
and the result is, not fair and civilized conflict on 
both sides, but on the one, resort to piracy and 
bloody ingratitude. 

It would not be easy to detect a reasonable motive 
for such acts of passion, which are not, as is usual 
with so unreflecting a prompter, blindly, impetuous 
and rash. These men pride themselves upon their 
rashness. The long, lingering pretext of Northern abo- 
litionism was too narrow in its scope, and too limited 
and individual even in its region of local allegation, 
to hold much longer. A better plea is unkenneled 
in the correspondence of a British reporter, who 
seems to have been greeted with open arms, notwith- 
standing long indulged reproaches of the peculiar 
Institution. That State which first unfurled the 
banner of secession, which brought her ten thousand 
to the conflict with the tens of Fort Sumter, which 
set the fatal example to the less irritated rest, has told 



SECESSION : A FOLLY AND A CRIME. 11 

her secret to the emissary of a foreign press. Ten 
years ago she proclaimed in a Nashville Convention 
her desires for separation but not the cause. A 
speech from Langdon Cheves, who had formerly re- 
moved from South Carolina to Philadelphia, and was 
at one time President of the Bank of the United 
States (hardly a secession corporation), declared that 
the lead of Virginia alone was wanting then. The 
old dominion herself, in broken integrity is now led, 
and the lesson is taught by a younger sister, who 
affects to assume and justify the responsibility. A 
lesson is learned, and its teachings adopted, which 
might call down the protesting shades of Washington 
and Henry, of Marshall and Jefferson to save from 
this double reproach, a perverted posterity. The 
form of a Republic is acknowledged by their teachers 
to have been among them an imposition. A high- 
toned monarchy is the now developed hope. Do the 
other republican forms of government, solemnly 
guaranteed by the Constitution, following as they 
have done the inglorious lead of lineal successions, 
adopt the motive, and avow the royal desire and 
tendency I Will they each seek a foreign prince to 
reign over them in the pride of distinct and disunited 
despotism'? Or will they, one and all together, 
banded in a holy alliance of confederate treason and 
disloyalty, bow down before a single domestic or 
foreign throne X 

It was to be looked for under such an impulse that 



12 SECESSION: A FOLLY AND A CRIME. 

the means adopted should be of a corresponding kind. 
Despotism is grasping in its character. Tyranny 
and oppression, lawless usurpation and selfish seizure 
of what rightfully belonged to others, without con- 
sent or compensation, equivalent or return, have 
marked the course of secession, as they are said to 
do of unlimited, arbitrary government. It is not of 
the bare secession that we complain. Bad as it is, 
unlawful and unwise, it is their own affair, while it is 
without incident or addition. Let them go in the 
name of the Prince of Darkness and worship him if 
they will. The essence of our complaint consists not 
of the mere withdrawal, by whatever name. They 
have done much more. In this, which is over and 
above, naked secession, we have only too much con- 
cern. It is in what they have said and done besides, 
that we are grieved. Our solemn protest is the result 
of positive wrong. They have not thought of the 
rights of others in asserting what are alleged to be 
their own. But claiming only the right to secede, 
they have boldly, yet cunningly, expanded their de- 
parture into a hardy seizure of property ; and with 
equal hardihood, they demand from us at the can- 
non's mouth, acknowledgment of their existence as 
an independent nation. AVe condemn the acts with 
which the separation has been accompanied and 
matured, their reckless violence and unquestioned 
wrong, and we assert in them over and above seces- 
sion that there has been positive injury done to our- 



secession: a folly and a chime. 13 

selves. If they must go, why not go in peace, and 
without committing personal as well as political 
crime 1 Some of their leaders have declared that 
they ought not to have declared war. It did not 
matter much. The blow in reality came before the 
word, and the blows have been made signal without 
a word to this hour, in defence of their extremity. 

Property of every description was seized and is 
withheld by force and fraud. Money and goods, forts 
and arsenals, debts and claims, mints and their con- 
tents, rights, some of which might have been regarded 
perhaps as held in common, and rights exclusively 
belonging to the general government. All have been 
taken alike, violently and, without applying the term 
with undue severity, or in any but its technical sense, 
feloniously ; and they are held without any expla- 
nation offered or pretended to on this point, in de- 
fiance of every principle of law, human and divine. 
One or more States have repudiated in their sovereign 
capacity. They have refused payment of interest on 
their bonds in which citizens of other States had 
made investments in an evil hour of unsuspecting 
confidence. Modern usage, it is believed, is for this 
without a precedent, in time of however flagrant war. 
Private debts have been ordered to be withheld from 
payment to the rightful creditor, and are directed to 
be paid into the State Treasury, there to abide the 
issue of the contest and the possibility of redemption. 

These facts have made the great issue between the 



14 SECESSION : A FOLLY AND A CRIME. 

North and the South, and the latter seems altogether 
willing to overlook any such facts and issue. The 
former does not consent to be robbed, and tamely 
submit to the loss, and then have farther concessions 
required. This is in a word, our side of the question. 
The South holds to its illegal gains without an offer 
to restore, or to submit the point to an umpire, or to 
reason upon the pretext of all this wrong. That 
is their side of the question. They avoid the point 
solely cared for by the North, and ask in effect that 
it should be waived, and that every thing else should 
be tamely surrendered. Avoiding unnecessary harsh- 
ness of language, and even the use of appropriate 
epithets in their extent and fulness, we present this 
as the real state of the issue between us, a difference 
of moral as much as political law. With all in their 
hands that they could contrive to take by force, they 
ask more, as if there were only one party to the 
bargain. As things stand, this would be to acknow- 
ledge robbery to be right and to abandon a sacred 
trust committed to the government as guardian of the 
nation. As things now stand, their daring demand 
of unconditional recognition is a mere insult, an in- 
dignity that is often worse than an injury— a thing 
that could not be listened to without loss of self re- 
spect. With hands polluted by spoils, with such 
wrongs done and unatoned by word or deed, they 
desire that we shall change them from individuals 
who have souls to perish, into corporations that have 



SECESSION : A FOLLY AND A CRIME. 15 

no moral or spiritual responsibility. They do more, 
they ask us and pretend to expect us to receive them 
as a power fit to govern in itself, and to stand upon 
the elevated ground of equality with a fraternity of 
honorable nations. The first step after committing 
wrong, should be repentance. The next, that re- 
pentance should be made practical, by a return of 
things wrongfully taken. Not a step is taken towards 
being in statu quo. No offer to give up in part or in 
whole, even no mediation of this point of right or 
wrong, or a thought that such a point exists. Like 
veteran depredators, delighted or at least satisfied 
with their unlawful trade, they stand up in boldest 
confidence, and demand like the professional high- 
waymen, delivery with a pistol at the breast of the 
traveller. They have been used to submission from 
the North. The triumphs over the Missouri compro- 
mise, and the different concessions of 1850, must be 
re-enacted into a new chapter of mistaken delicacy 
and forbearance on the one side and proud assumption 
on the other. No ! no ! The pitcher has gone to the 
well too often, and it is at length broken. The 
North, after a patient and somewhat ignoble slumber 
of years, has at length awakened to a sense of self- 
respect, and its thousands and tens and hundreds of 
thousands of patriots devoted to the Union and the 
Constitution, animated by one feeling of disdainful 
readiness, are rallying to the rescue. 

If the past has been marked with acts of violence, 



16 SECESSION : A FOLLY AND A CRIME. 

still greater efforts of rage are denounced in un- 
measured terms for the coming hour. These denun- 
ciations are not the utterance of mere humble 
apprentices in the new trade of secession. They are 
heard in tones of thunder from master workmen in 
rebellion, from the heads of separate conspiracies. 
Governers and ex-Governers — each in his different 
phrase, but each in a spirit not to be mistaken, vie 
with one another in the assault. It is now not 
against individual, but a people, not the angry tone 
of intended separation but the carnal-minded display 
of the unsheathed dagger. 

We have read in fiction of attempts to urge the 
confederates of treason to dye their hands deep in the 
blood of their promised victims. Such is the urgency 
of the basest of the band represented by the poet 
Otway in the conclave of a Venetian conspiracy. Be 
sure, says this desperado, that you shed blood enough. 
Seldom, until now, have the countersign and the 
watch-word of civil war in actual life, been inscribed 
in crimson. Civilized nations have carried on war in 
the hope indeed of conquest, but without unnecessary 
effusion of human blood. Here, the red flag of piracy 
is unfurled and its every fold floats to the breeze in 
warning or alarm for all who by the chance of war 
may fall into the hands of this new-fashioned foe. 
Coming from sources of clear authority we are not at 
liberty to doubt the genuineness of these threats, or 
the entire cordiality with which they will be executed 



SECESSION: A FOLLY AND A CRIME. 17 

A public meeting was addressed by the so-styled 
President of the New Confederacy, and in his pre- 
sence by an ex-governor of one of our neighboring 
States. These are necessarily to be received as 
official declarations, in the absence of all others, both 
of the war and the manner in which it is to be car- 
ried on. The speeches have been published every- 
where in all their horrors. They are not private 
and individual remarks, but public documents, in- 
tended, no doubt, and certainly calculated to have 
due influence in inspiring followers with like deter- 
mination, and in warning opponents against the 
wrath to come. A crowded audience is told, " You 
want war, fire, blood, to purify you ; and the Lord of 
hosts has demanded that you should walk through 
fire and blood. You are called to the fiery baptism. 
* Though your pathway be through five or 
through a river of blood, turn not aside." Then after 
being told to " take a lesson from John Brown," who 
became a Southern example, they are informed, "your 
true-blooded Yankee will never stand still in the face 
of cold steel." It was a like spirit which proposed 
in the name of God and nature, in the British House 
of Lords, to employ the savage Indians against our 
fathers, and called forth the rebuke of Lord Chat- 
ham's eloquence. That early friend of our infant 
country, denounced the idea of enlisting against their 
brethren of America, the cannibal savage, thirsting 
for blood. He could not tell what ideas of God and 



18 SECESSION : A FOLLY AND A CRIME. 

nature the noble lord entertained, but this he knew, 
that such principles were equally abhorrent to religion 
and humanity. We are told, too, for the first time, 
that our eastern brethren are cowards ! that they will 
not stand still in the face of cold steel. This reproach 
alone was wanting to rouse their indignant energies 
and doubly stimulate them to the encounter. One 
of the most estimable officers of the war of 1812, 
himself a South Carolinian, who left that State, it is 
believed, because of its disunion sentiments, Colonel 
Drayton, declared that the best soldiers of that war 
were the northern men. Is the 17th of June, '75, 
the day of the battle of Bunker Hill, forgotten ? Or 
is it supposed that the men of that day have degene- 
rated 1 When General Gage, through his telescope, 
discerned the manly figure of Colonel Prescott walk- 
ing the parapet, and encouraging his men, he asked 
quickly, "Will he fight f "Yes, sir," was the 
answer, of one who knew him, " to the last drop of 
blood." W T hen the scanty stock of American arms, 
which had done its fearful execution, was exhausted, 
and it was necessary to retire slowly, Colonel Prescott 
was one of the last to leave the redoubt, parrying 
with his sword, bayonets which had pierced his cloth- 
ing, like a true-blooded Yankee, fearless of " the face 
of cold steel." 

Whenever the country has required the best com- 
bination of skill and courage, it has been found in the 
Eastern soldier. Greene was the selected and ap- 



secession: a folly and a crime. 19 

proved reliance of Washington. A braver or a better 
general did not grace the annals of the revolution on 
land. In the war of 1812, the water too was witness 
to the merits of the Yankee, on the ocean and the 
lakes. Hull and Morris, in the Constitution, after 
out-manoeuvring a whole squadron of enemies, dis- 
played successful valor in the earliest of a line of 
naval victories which astonished the civilized world 
It was the utterance of a fervent wish of the great 
chieftain of England, the conqueror of Waterloo, that 
"they could take one of those damned (American) 
frigates." An Eastern youth, too, reported his victory 
over a British squadron, in terms almost as concise as 
those which have contributed to immortalize Julius 
Caesar, "We have met the enemy," was the despatch 
of Perry, " and they are ours." 

These are signal instances of thousands of disproofs 
of the reproach of a Confederate ex-governor, of Yan- 
kee mettle; and the proclamation of a Confederate 
General is scarcely less extraordinary. It announces 
that a reckless and unprincipled tyrant has invaded 
the soil, and has thrown in his Abolition hosts, who 
are murdering and imprisoning citizens * * and 
committing other acts of violence and outrage too 
shocking and revolting to humanity to be enumerated, 
Their war-cry is declared to be beauty and booty— 
and all that is dear to men, their honor and that of 
their wives and daughters, their fortunes and their 
lives, are said to be involved in the momentous con- 



20 secession: a folly and a crime. 

test ! This specimen of military rhetoric is here 
recorded for consideration. It has been contrasted 
with the dignified sobriety of tone of proclamations of 
military commanders, on the Union side. The hope 
has been expressed that it is not genuine, but has 
been foisted upon the public by some enemy of the 
officer whose name is subscribed. 

These bloody threats from the South have been 
alluded to, not for the purpose of creating uneasi- 
ness or alarm. Such an effect would be ill-adapted 
to the principles and practice of those against whom 
they are uttered. Much less under the belief that 
there are dormant energies to be aroused which in 
the day of trial seldom slumber. Let it be com- 
mended to the notice of all, not for the purpose of 
exciting a counteracting spirit, which in a Christian 
latitude could not exist, much less to echo the vain 
threats of what could find no trembling heart or ear. 
It is intended only to show the character of the war 
waged against us. It discards the established princi- 
ples of civilized hostility which teach forbearance 
from savage cruelty, and the exercise of force only as 
the necessary means of honorable conquest, in the 
full practice of Christian humanity. If the difference 
between us is to be this, let heaven and earth look 
upon the contest as it deserves, and let its conduct at 
least be handed down to a discriminating posterity, 
for approval or for frowning condemnation. Enough 
perhaps has appeared already to show that the an- 



SECESSION : A FOLLY AND A CHIME. 21 

nouncements under the red nag of Barbary are not a 
mere theory. Inhumanity has already marked the 
progress of the Southern war, and it will show its 
hideous front again when it can do so with safety 
under such fatal influences. When the contest was 
over at Great Bethel, and the humane survivors of 
the gallant Greble were removing the wounded and 
dead from the spot where they had fallen, they were 

i 

fired upon and murdered by the garrison that had 
been saved probably by the alleged mistake of an 
inexperienced Federal commander. Let these be les- 
sons of the tender mercies of the leaders and their (it 
may be reluctant) followers of a great section of a 
common country, with which we have been drawn 
not willingly at first into a fraternal war. Not even 
a choice of suffering is left to prisoners and wounded 
men. Not a hope or chance of alleviation is held 
out, and the worst forms of fatal infliction are at 
hand. 

It is some comfort to outraged humanity to con- 
trast such sentiments and the expression of them with 
those of a far different kind. They proceed from a 
commonwealth where friendship seems to be with- 
drawn from the general cause, but where a gallant 
bearing has always shown the teaching of that noble 
statesman, the pride of Kentucky and the country, 
now no more. As North and South united to acknow- 
ledge Henry Clay, as more than a mere party leader, 
his friends and associates who survive him for the 



22 SECESSION: A FOLLY AND A CRIME. 

most part emulate his devotion to the Union. One 
of these, Garret Davis, upon being called upon for 
certain information gives it in a strain of earnest 
patriotism. He knows his duty to his State and will 
not fight against her, but he knows his duty to the 
Union and will continue steadfast in his allegiance. 
These are some of the seemingly difficult purposes to 
reconcile, brought about everywhere, and especially 
in the Border States, of proper feeling towards a 
long-cherished, local home, with the all-controlling 
influence of the great and glorious republic, which 
has sheltered the whole nation and imparted an equal 
portion of renown to every commonwealth. Garret 
Davis is one of those estimable men who knows his 
duty and dares maintain it. Few are as able and 
none more willing to serve their country faithfully. 

Now, what have the United States done to call out 
Southern hostility and hatred 1 Nothing before the 
outbreak of rage, for nothing that was definite against 
them has been seriously alleged. Since the opening 
of rebellion they have at first faintly hoped, and more 
recently manfully endeavored to retain in a certain 
latitude the little that the fury of secession was 
unable to take from them. On the 29th of October 
rebellion was yet immature in action, restricted in 
position, and scarcely developed in general design. 
On that day our gallant commander wrote to Mr. 
Buchanan, officially recommending that the garrison 
of Fort Sumter should be strengthened. Had this 



SECESSION: A FOLLY AND A CRIME. 23 

step been taken it would probably have prevented 
the first and the costing step against the country. 
Then all the blood that has been shed and the 
property that has been destroyed might happily 
have been saved. The firmness and capacity of the 
General, met no corresponding firmness or capacity 
in the Executive. An imbecility beyond example 
hugged itself up in moth-consuming sloth. He 
differed from the General in every thing. The little 
nucleus of a garrison was left to its own unsupported 
valor ; and it fell with honor, and without loss of life. 
May we not trust that a special Providence befriended 
the just cause, when a protracted attack from ten 
thousand enemies, directed by sufficient experience, 
left all that was human in the Fort essentially un- 
harmed 1 The loss of the assailants has been care 
fully concealed. 

Rebellion needed no signal for active war. It had 
long been meditated, and was already, in many 
respects, prepared. Loyalty was slow to believe 
the sad reality. The chief magistracy was still 
inadequately filled. Time and the election brought 
about a change. The standard was reared in every 
quarter, and in every quarter the people rallied to its 
support. Future events are necessarily a mystery. 
But if recent ones have made their due impression, 
and experience has brought wisdom in its train, a 
correction of errors so palpable and so pernicious as 
they have proved to be, can scarcely escape the most 



24 SECESSION : A FOLLY AND A CRIME. 

negligent or unwise, or avoid correction in council and 
in the field. 

Up to the present moment, but one alleged griev- 
ance has been heard from the rebellious crew. The 
government would not listen to their appeal! Enough 
has been made known of the character of that in- 
tended appeal. It is understood to have been a mere 
naked demand of recognition, and nothing more ! 
And this would not be received ! There was a time, 
no doubt, when such a call would have been atten- 
tively heard. That was before it was mixed with 
other ingredients, now made inseparable from its 
nature, and aggravating its enormity. Before vio- 
lence had been resorted to, and property seized, a 
becoming proposal from a proper source might 
have been listened to, even without absolute dis- 
respect. Such a source, indeed, it might not have 
been easy to find. If we are rightly informed, a 
small minority only of the people in the whole has 
in any way given consent or expressed concurrence. 
The masses in almost all of the seceding States are 
believed to be unrepresented by their blood-thirsty 
rulers. If fully authorized by prince and people too, 
what was the basis of their proposal? It contained 
no compromise. It suggested no equivalent. It 
offered nothing in return. With hands full of ill- 
gotten gains, nothing seems to have been thought 
of restoration of what was taken, much less of atone- 
ment for the wrong. No denial of the fact. No 



SECESSION : A FOLLY AND A CRIME. 25 

extenuation of the iniquity. Not even an offer to 
submit to a third party either the question of their 
recognition or their liability to give up their prey. 
Why not make an offer which could have been 
listened to with some little self-respect, or at least 
not in a shape proudly censorious and less traitorously 
assuming and unfair'? Some equivalent was surely 
due ; something to give as well as take. But none 
appeared. The suppliant and the tyrant were one. 

There may possibly have been a transparent veil 
thrown over the belief that the desire of the only 
valuable production of the South in adequate supply 
might reconcile any indignity. The North knows 
its interest, but its knows its dignity and honor too. 
Cotton may perish, and its convenience be forgotten, 
rather than the North should forget what it owes to 
itself and to the Union. Sackcloth and ashes would 
be better, if worn with the pride of patriotism. 
Sympathy with our erring brethren is perfectly con- 
sistent with a determination to preserve, if possible, 
untarnished devotion to the country. Our hearts 
and arms may be open to receive them, when they 
are true to us and to themselves. Honorable peace 
is desired. But it cannot be made at the sacrifice of 
principle, or of the best interests of a large majority of 
the people of the United States. 

It did not need the inflammatory language of seces- 
sion speeches, and proclamations, to kindle the fiercest 
fires of civil war. It is in itself a fearful evil. Friends 



26 SECESSION : A FOLLY AND A CRIME. 

and brothers, fathers and children are arrayed in un- 
natural conflict with each other. Ordinary war is 
peace compared with it. No caution can prevent, no 
courage defeat its effects. Distance is no protection, 
and watchfulness is no guardian. A fatal blow may 
be aimed by an unsuspected neighbor, and the long- 
arm of treacherous friendship may, from remote 
places, reach the kindred heart. It was reserved for 
our prosperous country, and our happy and enlight- 
ened age, to invite and encourage practices that would 
have been a shame to the darkest period of the most 
uninstructed people. Yet the blame is not with us. 

It was a striking fact, that in Fort Sumter, 
attacked as it was by an overwhelming force, and 
assailed by every description of arms, not one of the 
heroic band of defenders suffered. Buildings were 
burned, fortifications were destroyed, every kind of 
injury was done to material defence, but officers and 
men were unharmed. Is it presumption to suppose 
that the first efforts of a just cause received the 
smiles of Heaven 1 The loss sustained on the other 
side is still a mystery, and the truth will long be 
concealed. If, in the progress of events, when upon 
each succeeding occasion, manly valor has been dis- 
played, death has been sustained from ill-advised 
exposure by inexperienced command ; there, too, the 
caution which Providence might have suggested, was 
neglected, and suffering was the consequence. It 
was one of the wise maxims of the best of Americans 



SECESSION: A FOLLY AND A CRIME. 27 

and of men, that a due preparation for war, was the 
best security of peace. But the wisdom that prompted 
the assertion, never forgot the necessity of caution 
and foresight in advancing into places of danger, or 
neglected the provision of scouts and outposts as the 
elementary instruction of military theory and prac- 
tice. Unnecessary exposure has cost the country 
dearly already, in the lives of some of its cherished 
sons. Among those who have suffered, and those 
who are in full pursuit of the Nation's honor and 
their own, it must be our just pride that some of our 
immediate fellow-citizens have been especially dis- 
tinguished. When Greble, in the midst of perils 
was advised to stoop down and avoid the bullets that 
whistled around him, he knew too well the value of 
example, to sacrifice it for life, and he fell gloriously 
in displaying the one, and in heroic disregard of the 
other. He verified a remark that was once applied 
by Commodore Decatur to Captain Lawrence, that 
there was no more dodge in him than in the mainmast. 
He suited the action to the word, and bequeathed at 
once an example and a watchword to his countrymen. 
We shall not arrogate anything to ourselves, in 
claiming this early victim of dauntless bearing in the 
civil war, as a Philadelphian. A happy relief from 
fatal consequences, through bodily injury and bold 
exposure, has distinguished another of our immediate 
brethren. Kelley lives to gain new laurels and to 
embellish by future deeds a reputation earned with 



28 SECESSION : A FOLLY AND A CRIME. 

blood. In still more elevated rank than those, is a 
native of our city, whose daily exhibitions of military 
science, and eloquent instruction, do credit to his 
birth place, and secure to him the respect and con- 
fidence of the country. The recent proclamation of 
General McClellan is a model of propriety. Its 
language and sentiments are equally worthy of praise. 
With the firmness of the soldier, it breathes a spirit 
of gentleness and mercy where occasion may become 
them. It will live in brilliant contrast with a pro- 
duction from the rebel camp full of Billingsgate 
invective. If " wives and daughters" had been in- 
sulted, proclaim the instances to a proper authority, 
and no Northern man, however accused, will escape 
condign punishment. Women of rebel association, 
it is said, have proffered hospitality with smiles to 
unsuspecting officers, and then treacherously betrayed 
them. Of this, the testimony is, it would seem, 
unquestionable. They have, perhaps, deceived their 
own officers into an assertion without foundation, as 
they did strangers into a confidence which was mis- 
placed. Generals Patterson and Cadwalader, also 
our gallant townsmen, have been tried in battle and 
in peace. 

It must be borne in mind, with conscious pride, 
that whatever may have been the kind of effort in 
which the Federal soldiers have thus far been en- 
gaged, whether happily suggested or unwisely led, 
the conduct of the inexperienced troops has been 



SECESSION : A FOLLY AND A CRIME. 29 

uniformly brave. Every one has proved himself 
manly and heroic. Whether to die or to succeed, 
his conduct has been a glorious example. The 
material of the army from almost every quarter has 
been sharply tried, although no great battle has been 
fought. In any condition or exposure that may 
occur, the country is now assured that the character 
already stamped upon its gallant sons, will be a cer- 
tain passport to glorious victory or honorable death. 



Philadelphia, July 4//j, 1861, 



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